<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>this beast I'm fighting (I'm not the only one) by plutosrose</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25540870">this beast I'm fighting (I'm not the only one)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutosrose/pseuds/plutosrose'>plutosrose</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>lightning only struck once [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brief mention of Dead Aang, Dead Body, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, Relationship Problems, Terrorism, implied PTSD, nobody you care about</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:41:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,972</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25540870</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutosrose/pseuds/plutosrose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“If my Uncle were here, he would say ‘the most important things in life do not come easy,’” Zuko did his best Uncle Iroh impression. Toph smiled.</p><p>“Yeah,” she murmured softly. “I think that’s exactly what he would say.” </p><p>-</p><p>Or, happily ever after has a lot of loose ends.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>lightning only struck once [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1811392</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>this beast I'm fighting (I'm not the only one)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I wish I had gotten to know him,” Zuko had said to Katara as he waited to be called to the palace balcony. After Azula’s death, the Fire Sages had quickly closed ranks to support Zuko’s claim on the throne, and the coronation day had to be perfect, which was probably why Zuko looked so fidgety and nervous.</p><p>Katara smiled slightly as she reached out to adjust the sash on his ceremonial robe. “He would have liked this side of you. I think the two of you would have been good friends, if you’d been given the chance.”</p><p>Then again, if Aang hadn’t died, would Zuko have come to join them? That question had floated into her mind about a week and a half ago and hadn’t left since then. It often made her feel as though she was betraying Aang’s memory by being with the person who had tried to capture him, even if that person had changed.</p><p>She pressed a kiss against Zuko’s lips. “You’re going to be the greatest Firelord this country has ever known.”</p><p>“No pressure,” he snickered, holding her close.</p><p>“Please,” Katara’s tone was light, and for the first time in weeks, she’d been able to smile without feeling like she was being weighed down. “I think you can do quite a bit better than any of the Firelords that were involved in the War. The Fire Sages will have to go back at least a hundred years before they find someone who compares.”</p><p>And she meant it, truly. Zuko was a good person. It was hard to picture how she would have made it through the last few months without him.</p><p>“I’m going to go find Sokka, Suki, and Toph,” she smiled up at him.</p><p>“No, I want you here,” he shook his head. “If there’s anyone that should be standing at my side today, it’s you.”</p><p>In another life, maybe, she could imagine Aang, in ceremonial Air Nomad robes, standing next to Zuko and waving to the crowds below as Zuko was crowned the Firelord. But her? Who was she? A Water Tribe peasant that had killed the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation.</p><p>It was rare that she thought of herself in such crude terms, but it was the way that some people in the Fire Nation - even if they liked Prince Zuko (and really, who wouldn’t like him? He was smart and nice and kind; he really was everything that a Firelord should have been).</p><p>“That’s not a good idea,” she murmured softly. The disappointed look on Zuko’s face gutted her, but she knew that she was doing the right thing. The last thing that he needed on this important day was for her to ruin it.<br/>“I’ll see you later, though,” she pressed a kiss against his cheek. “I don’t plan on going anywhere.”</p><p>-</p><p>Zuko screamed in his sleep that night.</p><p>“Do you want to talk about it?” Katara had asked.</p><p>“No,” Zuko had croaked, and curled up as far away from her on the bed as he possibly could.</p><p>-</p><p>Katara, Toph, Sokka, and Suki were now considered honored guests of the Fire Nation, and Zuko had made it clear that none of them had to leave the palace until they absolutely wanted to.</p><p>“You know, I always thought the Fire Nation palace would be bigger,” Sokka said over dinner one night.</p><p>Suki laughed. “You spend a week in a palace and you suddenly think it’s <em>small.</em>”</p><p>“What can I say?” Sokka shrugged. “I have standards now.”</p><p>Toph snorted.</p><p>-</p><p>The second time Zuko screaming woke her up, Katara was feeling agitated over more than lost sleep.</p><p>“Please Zuko, you keep screaming yourself awake. Let me help you.”</p><p>And just like last time, he turned away from her and buried himself in the heavy blanket that they shared on the bed.</p><p>“Katara, please leave me alone.”</p><p>-</p><p>Two weeks later, there’s several explosions in the capital that are thought to be the work of a combustionbender. One building burns down, and there’s several casualties. The moment that Zuko receives word, he spends the rest of the day going from house to house, personally comforting the survivors and the victims’ families, even though the Sages had thought that leaving the palace would present a threat to his safety (“Firelord Zuko, you can’t possibly think that it would be a good idea to leave the palace!” “These families are depending on me to comfort them. Would you like to be the one to go instead?”)</p><p>Toph was the one that found him in the dining hall, sipping from a cup of tea, and trying to will the images of burning bodies to leave his mind.</p><p>“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked him, and he shook his head.</p><p>“Yeah, me neither. I know the war is over, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something out there, you know?” she murmured as she slipped into a seat beside him. “Sometimes I think I can feel something underneath us - like really far down. Don’t know what it is, though.”</p><p>“The explosions are being looked into,” Zuko croaked, using the heat from his skin to warm up his tea. “I don’t know if they’re actually random.”</p><p>“You’re afraid,” Toph said plainly. Zuko shrugged.</p><p>“If my Uncle were here, he would say ‘the most important things in life do not come easy,’” Zuko did his best Uncle Iroh impression. Toph smiled.</p><p>“Yeah,” she murmured softly. “I think that’s exactly what he would say.”</p><p>-</p><p>That night, Zuko dreamed of a drill circling around the catacombs underneath the Fire Nation’s palace.</p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>“They call themselves the Red Ember Society,” the High Sage told Zuko.</p><p>“What do they want?”</p><p>The High Sage caught sight of Katara and hesitated for a moment. “Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of her,” Zuko said, a little more forcefully than he’d intended. The High Sage barely blinked at his tone.</p><p>The High Sage quickly bowed before he continued. “The short answer is that they would like to challenge the claim to your throne. The circumstances surrounding Princess Azula’s death are, for them, calling into question the legitimacy of your claim to the throne.”</p><p>Zuko grunted something unintelligible and then scrubbed a hand over his face. “Nobody seemed to care when father stole the throne - and it would have been mine by right, as the firstborn, anyway. If anyone stole anything, it was Azula.”</p><p>“That’s not the way that they see it.”</p><p>Zuko let out a sigh and then looked over at Katara. “What do you think of this?”</p><p>“I think that your life would be infinitely easier if you had put me in prison for killing Azula,” Katara said, tilting her chin up, because if this was the moment that she was going to be taken to a Fire Nation prison for the last time, she was going to go with her head held high.</p><p>Zuko was about to interject and say that they’d already had this conversation, and there was no way that he was changing his opinion when the High Sage bowed low. “Sorry, your highness, but that wasn’t all the information that I had - they also seem to believe that your father is alive.”</p><p>-</p><p>A week later, a masked man burns the words ‘Firelord Ozai is alive’ into the side of a building right outside of the palace.</p><p>“I want him alive,” Zuko instructed the soldiers who informed him of the incident.</p><p>That night, Zuko didn’t sleep.</p><p>Katara didn’t either.</p><p>-</p><p>“You’re going to have to talk about it eventually,” Katara said in the morning, cautiously reaching out to run her hand across his back.</p><p>Zuko curled up away from her, clutching a pillow to his stomach. “What do you want me to say, Katara?”</p><p>Katara furrowed her brow. “I just want you to be honest with me about how you’re feeling. I can tell that you’re hurting.”</p><p>“It’s really not important,” Zuko murmured, squeezing his eyes shut. The nightmares had been more frequent since he’d come back to the palace, and sometimes they were hard to shake. It was as if his body couldn’t tell the difference between the past and the present sometimes.</p><p><br/>And although Katara had an infinite well of patience sometimes, this made her huff indignantly, and grab her pillow off the bed. “I’m going to go sleep in Toph’s room.”</p><p>This made Zuko look up and search for her face. “I’m sorry, Katara. Please don’t go.” Sleeping in the same bed had become such a habit that he wasn’t sure that he could sleep if she decided to start spending her nights somewhere else.</p><p>“I know,” Katara murmured, frowning. “I just need to think and I’m not going to be able to do it here.”</p><p>She didn’t look back at him when she closed the door behind her.</p><p>Fortunately, Toph didn’t ask questions when she came to her room, and simply pulled back the covers so that she could climb into bed alongside her.</p><p>But, as she fluffed her pillow and settled in, Toph pursed her lip.</p><p>“His leg is always shaking.”</p><p>“What?” Katara raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“I can feel it,” Toph continued. “He can never stay still, and when he’s in the throne room, it’s the worst. I’m just saying...there are some things that he probably doesn’t want to talk about, and you should wait until he’s ready to talk about them.”</p><p>Although Katara’s first impulse was to tell Toph that she and Zuko had been sharing a bed for months and there should have been no secrets between them, she knew she was right. As crude and blunt as Toph could sometimes be, she had a real instinct when it came to people.</p><p>-</p><p>“I won’t push,” Katara said to Zuko next morning over breakfast. Sokka, Suki, and Toph tended to wake up later most days, so it was often just the two of them together in the dining room.</p><p>Zuko smiled softly. “Thanks, Katara.”</p><p>“I’ll come back to bed too, tonight.”</p><p>She could see Zuko’s shoulders visibly relax. “I’d like that.”</p><p>-</p><p>“Who knew that you would end up dating the Firelord?” Sokka teased one day when they were sparring outside on the palace grounds.</p><p>When they’d been traveling with Aang, Sokka wasn’t much of a match for her and her bending, but he’d progressed significantly since then. He could avoid the whips of water that she directed toward him, throw his boomerang, all while doing something ridiculous, like balancing himself on top of one of the rocks in the middle of a large pond.</p><p>She was a little envious sometimes, even if she often was able to get him back by restricting his vision by making the water in the pond rise into the air in thick columns.</p><p>“He’s not my boyfriend.”</p><p>Sokka quirked an eyebrow at her as he leapt from one rock in the center of the pond to another, and then rolled straight through a column of water to throw his boomerang again. Katara moved her arms to the side and made the water slap the boomerang down.</p><p>“You sleep in his bed every night.”</p><p>“So? We’ve been doing that since before the invasion.”</p><p>“C’mon Katara, what the hell do you take me for? Suki told me you guys kissed before the coronation.”</p><p>Katara paused for a moment, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when Suki would have seen them together. Then again, she was a trained Kyoshi Warrior. It stood to reason that if she wanted to sneak up on her, she wouldn’t have noticed, despite how much practice she’d gotten over the past few months on their prison breaks.</p><p>“Even if he is, it’s not going to last,” Katara countered, kicking up a stream of water and making Sokka roll off to the side to avoid it. “The people of the Fire Nation will never accept a Princess from the Water Tribe. Especially not one who killed their Crown Princess.”</p><p>Sokka shrugged. “Maybe that’s something you should talk about.”</p><p>Katara raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you talk about things like that with Suki?”</p><p>Sokka didn’t miss a beat. “Yes.”</p><p>-</p><p>If her boyfriend was the Firelord, then well, he was extremely busy.</p><p>When he wasn’t pouring over new information about the Red Ember Society’s activities, he was working on finding new jobs for soldiers who were coming back every day from the former colonies in the Earth Kingdom. He was taking messages from the Earth King, and the leaders in the Northern and Southern Water Tribes.</p><p>And, as the newly crowned Firelord, the descendent of those men who had started the one hundred year war, he had taken it upon himself to work with the Fire Sages to determine if Aang had been reincarnated.</p><p>He was going to find the Avatar, all over again.</p><p>-</p><p>“Do you think the cycle was broken?” Zuko asked Katara one night when she curled up against him.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Katara shook her head. “By the time I left the Southern Water Tribe, I was the last bender.”</p><p>There was a sinking feeling in the pit of Katara’s stomach that told her that Zuko was chasing a dead end, just like he had when Aang was still frozen in the ice.</p><p>-</p><p>It was midway through a briefing from the High Sage that a soldier came into the throne room. He bowed low. “I apologize for interrupting, your highness, but I thought it was important to inform you that we’ve located Mai and Ty Lee.”</p><p>-</p><p>When Mai and Ty Lee came to the palace, Zuko threw his arms around Mai before he said hello to Ty Lee. Katara did her best to ignore the pang of jealousy that she felt in her chest.</p><p>-</p><p>It got worse when she overheard the High Sage suggest that he and Mai get married when he turned eighteen (“It would be a good way to unite the country and finally put this Red Ember Society business to bed.”) She did not stay long enough to listen to the rest of the conversation.</p><p>It felt so juvenile to feel jealous, and at the same time, there was a part of her that almost loved the feeling, because it felt so untouched by war.</p><p>-</p><p>Now Zuko was even busier, having added stops to Mai and Ty Lee’s apartment on the palace grounds into his schedule. Toph was now the only one who would spar with her - both Sokka and Suki started outright refusing to after a few ice daggers that got too close to their skin.</p><p>Part of Katara wasn’t used to fighting without intending to cause someone actual damage anymore, but the other part of her knew that the jealousy was only growing.</p><p>And Toph could tell she was lying without her needing to explain herself.</p><p>“You have to give him time.”</p><p>“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Katara huffed as she sliced through an incoming boulder.</p><p>Toph shrugged as she punched the ground and sent a stream of rocks in Katara’s direction. “I’m just saying, Katara, you’re allowed to be annoyed--”</p><p>“--I really have no business being annoyed,” Katara interjected, missing the ground shaking from underneath her and falling backward. “Damnit!”</p><p>A small smile spread across Toph’s features. “Look, you’re allowed to be annoyed. But I think you also have to consider the fact that he came back home and everyone and everything he knew had changed.”</p><p>Katara sighed and let the water that she’d pulled from the air drop down at her sides. Zuko had confessed that his Uncle still hadn’t been found, even with the war over. “It feels like every day he’s chasing something else. The war’s over and he can’t just…stop.”</p><p>Toph quirked an eyebrow at Katara. “Yeah, like you’re one to talk.”</p><p>“What’s that supposed to mean?”</p><p>“You’re constantly jumpy. I can tell that you’re never completely at ease anywhere in the palace, just like Zuko,” she shrugged. “The rest of us, we’re handling our stuff the best we can, but you and Zuko--since that time you both left in the middle of the night--you’ve both absorbed the war itself. You’re trying to carry the pain for every single one of us.”</p><p>“No--” Katara began, and Toph put up a hand.</p><p>“You need to give him time, like I said, but you need to give yourself time, too.”</p><p>-</p><p>Another fire.</p><p>Hostages, this time.</p><p>Zuko paced around the throne room for an hour after the High Sage told him that it would be a bad idea for him to join the fight.</p><p>-</p><p>The following morning, as Katara was on her way to meet Zuko, Toph almost barrelled into her. “Katara,” she said, tugging on the front of her dress. “I found something really important, I need to show it to you.”</p><p>“Why me?”</p><p>Toph raised an eyebrow. “I just need someone else to see it too - and I’m worried about Sokka and Suki coming along if I turn out to be wrong.”</p><p>Zuko approached, clearing his throat. “Katara, I think we need to talk about something.”</p><p>Katara’s stomach dropped. Toph looked apprehensive for a moment, before nodding and walking off.</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>“The Red Ember Society is demanding your life in exchange for the hostages.”</p><p>Katara, for a brief moment, had been so certain that he was about to tell her that he and Mai were back together that she now felt mildly foolish.</p><p>Her mouth felt dry. “Who are they?”</p><p>“Disaffected soldiers who had too much power during the war,” Zuko shrugged. “It’s really not important. I think it’s important though that you not leave the palace right now. Not even going out on the grounds.”</p><p>She reached out and touched his arm, feeling relieved when he didn’t pull away. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“You have nothing to be sorry for.”</p><p>“Is this why you’ve been spending so much time with Mai?”<br/>As soon as she let the words leave her mouth, she felt stupid. Worse than stupid, actually. Zuko had held her through her worst nightmares, and she’d allowed herself - indulged it, even - to speculate about his relationship with Mai.</p><p>Zuko drew his mouth into a tight line and walked away.</p><p>-</p><p>That night, Zuko didn’t come to bed. Katara wasn’t surprised to find that she couldn’t sleep alone anymore.</p><p>“Katara?”</p><p>She looked up to see that Toph had cracked the door open. Relief washed over her as light filtered into the room.</p><p>“I need to show you something.” There was more certainty in her tone now.</p><p>Katara nodded and slipped on her shoes to follow Toph out of the room.</p><p>-</p><p>Zuko had said that she couldn’t leave the palace, but he had said nothing about using the basement to enter the catacombs that snaked underneath the building.</p><p>Katara grabbed a torch off the wall and followed behind Toph. “There’s a lot down here,” Toph said, “stay close.”</p><p>She really didn’t have to tell her twice. There were plenty of secret rooms down there that she could easily see herself getting lost without Toph. The silence seemed to reverberate throughout her entire body.</p><p>“I thought there was a person walking around down here,” Toph confessed, “So I had to check it out.”</p><p>Toph stopped suddenly and furrowed her brow. “I think I found it.”</p><p>She reached her arm out and pushed against the stone wall, which easily gave way.</p><p>A body dropped in front of their feet.</p><p>Katara wasn’t sure if it was weird or not that neither of them screamed.</p><p>-</p><p>The body was quickly confirmed to be that of Firelord Ozai.</p><p>The High Sages and the other advisors were having a tough time piecing together the circumstances surrounding his death. Katara could practically feel the truth clawing at them, trying to make itself known.</p><p>When she reached out to comfort Zuko this time, he shook her off.</p><p>-</p><p>The following day, over his advisors’ objections, Zuko went to save the hostages himself. Toph, Sokka, and Suki went with him.</p><p>“None of us like that you’re staying behind any more than you do,” Sokka said as he put his boomerang in its sheath.</p><p>“It’s fine,” Katara folded her arms across her chest.</p><p>As they were all leaving, Suki hung back, and leaned in close.</p><p>“If you love him, be honest with him.”</p><p>-</p><p>Katara held her breath when they left, unable to get the image of death out of her head.</p><p>-</p><p>That night, they returned, sporting more burn marks and scars, but otherwise alive. Zuko was even laughing at something Sokka had just said. When they spotted her, Sokka and Suki quickly begged off (“Wow, I’m so tired all of a sudden.” “Me too, Sokka.”) and elbowed Toph until she did the same (“Earthbending really just takes a lot out of you.”)</p><p>Before Zuko could say anything, Katara blurted out, “I’m sorry. I should have never said that about Mai.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Zuko grunted. “You shouldn’t have. She spent months in solitary confinement in one of the worst prisons in the Fire Nation. She’s having trouble adjusting because of what my sister did to her.”</p><p>Katara’s heart sank. “I didn’t know.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Zuko shook his head. “You didn’t. Now you do.”</p><p>“Are you mad at me?”</p><p>Zuko shrugged. “Honestly Katara, I’m not sure what I’m feeling half the time.”</p><p>Toph’s words came to the forefront of her mind. “You don’t have to deal with everything alone.”</p><p>“I’m really tired Katara, do we have to talk about this now?”</p><p>Katara shook her head. “No. We can talk about it when you want to talk about it, like I said. I’m just worried about you.”</p><p>Zuko’s expression softened. “We’ll talk about it, I promise. Just not now. But soon.”</p><p>-</p><p>Soon turned out to be much sooner than Katara had anticipated, because as she’d drifted into fitful, dreamless sleep, she’d heard Zuko screaming.</p><p>She reached out and put a hand on his chest. “You’re okay. You’re fine.”</p><p>Zuko let out a breath. “I’m really not fine.”</p><p>“Do you want to talk about it?”</p><p>“The other reason that I’ve been going to see Mai is that she knows everything.”</p><p>Katara furrowed her brow. “What do you mean by <em>everything</em>?”</p><p>Zuko sighed again. “My childhood was not a happy one. I think about it almost every moment I’m in the palace.”</p><p>For the first time, it really sunk in that Zuko had not just run away to join the war, but also run from his own memories.</p><p>“What happened?”</p><p>“Do you want a list, Katara?” Zuko snapped, the same tense line in his jaw.</p><p>“No,” she murmured quietly.</p><p>“I have a hard time talking about it,” he admitted. “It’s just easier to be around someone who already knows everything.”</p><p>Another question bubbled up inside of her, but fortunately, this time she was able to stop herself from asking.</p><p>“I want to leave that in the past, Katara. That’s why Mai and I aren’t together anymore.”</p><p>Her instinct was to press further for an explanation, but Zuko had said the words with such certainty that she felt like it would be a bad idea.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I said that, I….feel like I can’t sit still sometimes. When I do, I just think about holding Aang’s body,” she admitted.</p><p>Zuko shifted closer to her and pulled her into his side.</p><p>“Toph said that we’re trying to carry pain for everyone,” Katara furrowed her brow. “She explained it better than that, but...I think she might be right.”</p><p>Zuko pressed a kiss against her temple. “Yeah, I think she might be right too.”</p><p>-</p><p>“Zuko?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Stop me if this is a ridiculous question, but….do you think someone from the Water Tribe could ever be a Fire Nation Princess?”</p><p>Zuko snorted and smiled into her hair. “Let’s just sleep now. I think we both deserve it.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title is from Dangerous Man by Little Dume.</p><p>This is a wrap on lightning only struck once. I really hope you enjoyed it. &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>